This invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, an information processing system and a recording medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and an information processing system designed to gather and accumulate information concerning tastes of individuals without difficulty and provide service information corresponding to users"" tastes and also to a recording medium adapted to such an apparatus.
It is currently a general practice to prepare and distribute direct mails carrying information on goods and services meeting the tastes of a specific user group. To do this, efforts will have to be paid to gather information on personal tastes typically by means of questionnairs and analyse the obtained data in order to find out the individual tastes of the respondents.
However, the above described conventional method for finding out personal tastes is accompanied by a number of problems. One of such problems is the difficulty of preparing adequate qeustionnaires because they are more often than not rather subjective and the findings can be different among the analysers who analyse the obtained data. Then, it will not be possible to accurately find out personal tastes. Another problem accompanying the conventional method is that the entire project of preparing questionnairs, collecting them and analysing them is very labour intensive and time consuming.
Still another problem is that the personal data obtained from the collected questionnaris can, if partly, be leaked to the outside to infringe on privacy.
In view of the above described circumstances, it is there fore the object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and an information processing system designed to gather and accumulate information concerning tastes of individuals without difficulty and provide service information corresponding to users"" tastes as well as a recording medium adapted to such an apparatus.
According to an aspect of the invention, the above object is achieved by providing an information processing apparatus for selecting services to be provided to individual subscribers by way of a plurality of terminal units connected to the apparatus, said apparatus comprising: memory means for storing personal information lists containing personal information including experiences on services; personal information extraction means for comparing the experience information contained in a remarkable piece of personal information and the experience information contained in each of the pieces of personal information contained in said personal information lists and extracting the pieces of personal information strongly related to said remarkable piece of personal information; and selection means for selecting services to be provided to the terminal unit corresponding to said remarkable piece of personal information on the basis of the pieces of personal information extracted by said personal information extraction means.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method for selecting services to be provided to individual subscribers by way of a plurality of terminal units connected to the apparatus, said method comprising steps of: storing personal information lists containing personal information including experiences on services; comparing the experience information contained in a remarkable piece of personal information and the experience information contained in each of the pieces of personal information contained in said personal information lists and extracting the pieces of personal information strongly related to said remarkable piece of personal information; and selecting services to be provided to the terminal unit corresponding to said remarkable piece of personal information on the basis of the pieces of personal information extracted in said step of extracting personal information.
According to still another aspect of invention, there is provided an information processing system comprising a plurality of terminal units and an information processing apparatus for providing service information to said plurality of terminal units, each of said terminal units having: input means for inputting experience information relating to said service information and request information requesting service information to said information processing apparatus; first communication means for transmitting said experience information and said request information to said information processing apparatus and receiving said service information from said information processing apparatus by way of a network; and display means for displaying the service information received by said first communication means; said information processing means having:
second communication means for receiving experience information and request information from said information processing apparatus and transmitting service information to said plurality of terminal units; memory means for storing a personal information list containing personal information on a plurality of individuals including said service information transmitted from said first communication means of said plurality of terminal units and received by said second communication means;
remarkable personal information extraction means for extracting experience information contained in remarkable personal information relating to said terminal unit used for transmitting said request information from said memory means; related personal information extraction means for extracting personal information strongly related to said remarkable personal information from each pieces of personal information contained in said personal information list by comparing said experience information contained in said remarkable personal information with experience information contained in each pieces of personal information contained in the personal information list stored in said memory means; and selection means for selecting said service information for the terminal unit corresponding to said remarkable personal information on the basis of the personal information extracted by said related personal information extraction means; said second communication means being adapted to transmit said service information selected by said selection means to said terminal unit used to transmit said request information by way of said network.
According to a still another aspect of the invention, there is provided a recording medium storing an information processing program adapted to be read by a computer for selecting services to be provided to a plurality of terminal units; said information processing program being for use for each of the individuals using said plurality of terminal units and adapted to carry out a processing operation comprising steps of: storing personal information lists containing personal information including experiences on services; comparing the experience information contained in a remarkable piece of personal information and the experience information contained in each of the pieces of personal information contained in said personal information lists and extracting the pieces of personal information strongly related to said remarkable piece of personal information; and selecting services to be provided to the terminal unit corresponding to said remarkable piece of personal information on the basis of the pieces of personal information extracted in said step of extracting personal information.